Background The correct identification of pills is very important to ensure the safe administration of drugs to patients. Here, we use three current mainstream object detection models, namely RetinaNet, Single Shot Multi-Box Detector (SSD), and You Only Look Once v3(YOLO v3), to identify pills and compare the associated performance. Methods In this paper, we introduce the basic principles of three object detection models. We trained each algorithm on a pill image dataset and analyzed the performance of the three models to determine the best pill recognition model. The models were then used to detect difficult samples and we compared the results. Results The mean average precision (MAP) of RetinaNet reached 82.89%, but the frames per second (FPS) is only one third of YOLO v3, which makes it difficult to achieve real-time performance. SSD does not perform as well on the indicators of MAP and FPS. Although the MAP of YOLO v3 is slightly lower than the others (80.69%), it has a significant advantage in terms of detection speed. YOLO v3 also performed better when tasked with hard sample detection, and therefore the model is more suitable for deployment in hospital equipment. Conclusion Our study reveals that object detection can be applied for real-time pill identification in a hospital pharmacy, and YOLO v3 exhibits an advantage in detection speed while maintaining a satisfactory MAP.

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Background: The correct identification of pills is very important to ensure the safe administration of drugs to patients. We used three currently mainstream object detection models, respectively Faster R-CNN, Single Shot Multi-Box Detector (SSD), and You Only Look Once v3(YOLO v3), to identify pills and compare the associated performance.Methods: In this paper, we introduce the basic principles of three object detection models. We trained each algorithm on a pill image dataset and analyzed the performance of the three models to determine the best pill recognition model. Finally, these models are then used to detect difficult samples and compare the results.Results: The mean average precision (MAP) of Faster R-CNN reached 87.69% but YOLO v3 had a significant advantage in detection speed where the frames per second (FPS) was more than eight times than that of Faster R-CNN. This means that YOLO v3 can operate in real time with a high MAP of 80.17%. The YOLO v3 algorithm also performed better in the comparison of difficult sample detection results. In contrast, SSD did not achieve the highest score in terms of MAP or FPS.Conclusion: Our study shows that YOLO v3 has advantages in detection speed while maintaining certain MAP and thus can be applied for real-time pill identification in a hospital pharmacy environment.

BackgroundPrescription errors impact the safety and efficacy of therapy and are considered to have a higher impact on paediatric populations. Nevertheless, information in paediatrics is still lacking, particularly in primary care settings. There exists a need to investigate the prevalence and characteristics of prescription errors in paediatric outpatients to prevent such errors during the prescription stage.MethodsA cross-sectional study to evaluate paediatric prescription errors in multi-primary care settings was conducted between August 2019 and July 2021. Prescriptions documented within the electronic pre-prescription system were automatically reviewed by the system and then, potentially inappropriate prescriptions would be reconciled by remote pharmacists via a regional pharmacy information exchange network. The demographics of paediatric patients, prescription details, and types/rates of errors were assessed and used to identify associated factors for prescription using logistic regression.ResultsA total of 39,754 outpatient paediatric prescriptions in 13 community health care centres were reviewed, among which 1,724 prescriptions (4.3%) were enrolled in the study as they met the inclusion criteria. Dose errors were the most prevalent (27%), with the predominance of underdosing (69%). They were followed by errors in selection without specified indications (24.5%), incompatibility (12.4%), and frequency errors (9.9%). Among critical errors were drug duplication (8.7%), contraindication (.9%), and drug interaction (.8%) that directly affect the drug's safety and efficacy. Notably, error rates were highest in medications for respiratory system drugs (50.5%), antibiotics (27.3%), and Chinese traditional medicine (12.3%). Results of logistic regression revealed that specific drug classification (antitussives, expectorants and mucolytic agents, anti-infective agents), patient age (<6 years), and prescriber specialty (paediatrics) related positively to errors.ConclusionOur study provides the prevalence and characteristics of prescription errors of paediatric outpatients in community settings based on an electronic pre-prescription system. Errors in dose calculations and medications commonly prescribed in primary care settings, such as respiratory system drugs, antibiotics, and Chinese traditional medicine, are certainly to be aware of. These results highlight an essential requirement to update the rules of prescriptions in the pre-prescription system to facilitate the delivery of excellent therapeutic outcomes.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is widely used in China, but the large variety can easily lead to difficulties in visual identification. This study aims to evaluate the availability of target detection models to identify TCMs. We have collected images of 100 common TCMs in pharmacies, and use three current mainstream target detection models: Faster RCNN, SSD, and YOLO v5 to train the TCM dataset. By comparing the metrics of the three models, the results show that the YOLO v5 model has obvious advantages in the recognition of a variety of TCM, the mean average accuracy of the YOLO v5 is 94.33% and the FPS has reached 75, this model has a smaller number of parameters and solves the problem of detection and occlusion for small targets. Our experiments prove that the target detection technology has broad application prospects in the detection of TCM.